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Lake Vermilion 2017 open water fishing reports and related information.


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Have been going to Vermillion for many years but not this early.  What is the bait of choice for early walleye?

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Minnows! Fatheads & rainbows. I have had some success with leeches early if the water is warmer then normal.

Crawlers will also get a few fish early.

Cliff

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Put our boats in the water yesterday and I would second Cliffs comments.  My son also got the first swim of the season out of the way. Brrrrr. Shaping up to be a great opener!!!

Edited by RoosterMan
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Like Cliff I plan on fishing in deeper water on opener unless we get blow off of Big bay. Jigs/minnows, split shot rigs and plain lindys during the day and slip bobbers in the evening.

Have a great opener!! ;)

"Ace"

"It's just fishing man"

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I will be on Vermillion Saturday for my first time. Cant wait to catch a few nice fish! Good luck everybody!

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On 5/9/2017 at 10:16 AM, HugeHogChaser said:

I will be on Vermillion Saturday for my first time. Cant wait to catch a few nice fish! Good luck everybody!


Good luck!  Let us know how it went...

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13 hours ago, delcecchi said:


Good luck!  Let us know how it went...

Will do my friend! Thank you! good luck to you as well!

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Good luck, have fun and be safe everyone.  Look forward to hearing some reports and seeing some pics!

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Weather forecast looks great!  Which probably means a blizzard Sat am...:D:D

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30 minutes ago, Nix769 said:

Weather forecast looks great!  Which probably means a blizzard Sat am...:D:D

Naw, the national and Internet forecasters usually miss the temps up here by 5+ degrees, low.  I wouldn't be surprised to see 70 degrees on Saturday.  Fingers crossed for a good one.  Good luck to all.

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No fishin for me, I was out on water patrol for a few hours.

 

I did mark a LOT of fish in the 20-25' range.

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I fished today with my wife's nephew's two sons.

Very slow bite everywhere we went but we did manage to boat 20 walleyes and kept our limit of 12 fish! We marked very few fish today also.

Largest walleye caught was 18-3/4 inches. Most of our keepers were around 14 inch males.

27 feet to 35 feet in the mud or on the mud/sand transition was best.

Lindy rigs with fathead chubs or rainbow chubs was all that we tried.

Cliff

 

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Good to see you again cliff. We picked up a few on a jig and minnow. Lindy rigs with shiners or rainbows seemed to work best. Didn't graph much. Put 14 in the boat, got our limit of 8, biggest was 19.99". Depths were anywhere from 15 to 35 fow. Hooked up with a 30 something inch snot rocket as well. This opener was tougher then I was expecting. Good to be on soft water again.

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I agree the opener bite was tougher then I thought it would be but still great to be back on open water again!

Cliff

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We did well with jigs and minnow in 20-25 fow on westerly facing shore lines.  Tried a few leeches but still too cold.  Green/white/orange did slightly better than all black.  No hogs but everything we kept was between 14 and 17.  Adding in mild weather it was a great opener!

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West end Norwegian bite was slower than normal but once again all big fish. Our group of three caught 7 all from 21-27 inches. 

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Decent bite started at around 10:00am again today.

We fished in 19' to 24' water with lindy,orange glow bead, and suckers and rainbows.

Nothing real big again but all nice 15" to 17-1/2" keepers! Boated a total of 21 walleyes by 2:00pm.

Much warmer today but more wind!

Cliff

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Thanks for sharing your experience, guys. Some of us are sitting indoors wishing we were there and we appreciate the posts. By the time I get there I foresee wind and rain. Just like I like it.

RLG

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Never got out for walleye.  Got the crapps to bite though.  Were a little tight lipped but ultimately missed a few, boated 17, a few nice bluegill and that translated into a great Mother's Day fish fry.  Back to reality until Memorial wknd...

IMG_1234.JPG

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We were on the west end for the weekend.  We went to Black Bay and saw 10-15 boats trolling Shad Raps.  There were 4 of us so we didn't want to try that.  Instead we opted for Lindy Rigs with rainbows.  I've never used Lindy's in water that shallow but it worked!  We boated a total of 13 walleye with 3 keepers from 17 - 20".  The largest throw back was 25 and the other were consistently 21-22".  One guy decided to drag a blue jig tipped with a crappie minnow and landed 6 crappies.  One of them was 14".  I saw very few walleye caught from the trollers.  I'm thinking we did a bit better with Lindy's.

All of that before noon.  We went back that night --- nothing.  I think the boat traffic in Black Bay either drove them out or shut them off.  We tried Norwegian near the end and only 1 fish Saturday night - 28".

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My son and I boated a limit of 14-16 inch males, but we had to work for them.  My son got lucky and landed a 28" walleye in 32 feet.  He was one happy camper.  We landed a few nice smallies too throwing plastics to the shoreline.  

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It was good to be back on soft water at the cabin again.  The bite was certainly not as I expected it to be, but overall not bad.  When it was all said and done everyone in our group brought their limits home. Caught fish from 10' to 36' fow.  The average size of the fish was very nice.  It was a great opener.  Great to be back with good friends and all the kids that are picking up the tradition of Walleye Opener. 

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we caught 4 keeper walleye saturday on vermillion, and i caught a 4.1 pound Small mouth bass, my PB, from the dock. 

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Still a very slow bite today! Got all of our fish between 11:00am and 12:00pm again.

14' to 23' depth range using Lindys with rainbows and suckers. Nothing deep today.

Rainy and cool here!

Cliff

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Ended up getting a dozen or so eyes today...Jigging rap was my best bait....20-25ft was the best for me...I've had enough of this weather.

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This weekend looks like fun.  High on Saturday is 46 with 100% chance of rain. 

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45 minutes ago, Fish Head said:

This weekend looks like fun.  High on Saturday is 46 with 100% chance of rain. 

 

The forecast is improving!  High of 48 with only a 60% chance of rain!!

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • mulefarm
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